That night, like always, the first thing Colonel Detective Pablo Rigel did when he got home was turn on the TV. The news anchor’s voice helped drown out the silence of his empty living room and the chirping of crickets outside.

  As usual, he made his way to the kitchen, taking off his dark uniform piece by piece along the way, leaving a trail on the floor that started with his boots and belt by the entrance and ended with his jumpsuit at the foot of the fridge.

  He grabbed a bottle of water, took a sip, and picked up the leftover chicken sandwich from the night before. Just as he was about to take a bite, he realized he wasn’t hungry, but instead of putting it back, he tossed it in the trash.

  He headed to the bathroom and took a long shower.

  The water washed away the grime and sweat from his trip to the Hundred Caves, where the heat and humidity had clung to his skin like glue. But when he turned off the water, he had the strange sense that he still wasn’t fully clean, that something remained to be washed away.

  It was an almost intangible feeling, one that no shower could ever cleanse. The same feeling that had killed his appetite, the same feeling that had weighed on him since they’d left the canyon hours before.

  It was the crime scene, the horrific state they’d found those poor geology students in, the blood splatters across the cave. And then, there was what he and his team had found in that hidden bunker behind those rocky walls. What he’d seen there disturbed him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  And when he went to bed and closed his eyes, trying to relax, the memories of what he had seen in the canyon came rushing back.

  Standing in front of the massive opening, wearing antiseptic helmets—transparent, with small lights on the sides—Rigel and Bill Serrano stared into what Chris Snow and the other Forensics Division officers had just uncovered behind the cave wall:

  A corridor of yellowed panels, worn by humidity and time; a polished concrete floor and a ceiling lined with pipes and air ducts, dust hanging thick in the air, and a blurry darkness waiting for the flashlights to move on, eager to plunge everything back into the perpetual oblivion it had known for who knows how long.

  Rigel ignored the darkness’s call and kept scanning it, sweeping his light back and forth.

  “Has anyone gone in yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” Snow replied, their voices muffled by the oxygenation system in the helmets. “We were waiting for you to—”

  Rigel took a step into the bunker. When his boots hit the floor, the layer of dust broke apart, and the particles joined those already drifting in the stale air.

  Activating his flashlight at full power, he aimed it forward; the beam cut through the darkness and the ghosts of fog.

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  Thankfully, the helmet shielded him from the damp, musty odor that likely clung to every inch of that place.

  The corridor stretched farther than he’d expected—maybe a hundred, maybe a hundred and thirty feet long. The laminated wall was on his left; farther down that side, ten or twelve doors waited for him, all of them shut. On his right, along the opposite side of the cave, bundles of cables ran below, and above—right where the hole in the wall was, the one he’d used to get in—there was an acrylic air duct, perforated and missing one of its grates. Most likely the same one his men had found outside.

  “Think this could be the killer’s hideout, Colonel?” Serrano called from the cave. His voice rumbled and then faded with the hiss of the wind.

  “Possibly, yes,” Rigel replied. His voice echoed down the corridor, growing fainter as it stretched into the unknown. Thud… Thud… Thud… The sound of his footsteps melted into the shadows ahead… and behind.

  He turned around, slicing through curtains of dust with the beam of his flashlight.

  “Be careful, Colonel. The killer could be in there somewhere,” Serrano urged.

  “It’s been a while since anyone walked these halls, Bill,” Rigel replied. “Though a bunker is more than just one hallway…”

  Yes, the killer could be lurking somewhere in there, but he didn’t think so.

  “The thermal and infrared detectors show no signs of life,” Snow confirmed.

  The flashlight revealed that the corridor took a left turn ahead, where a deep shadow swallowed all visibility. Whoever had built this place must have followed the natural structure of the inner caves in the massive cliff. The question was, where would that turn lead, and was it close to an exit?

  “Chris, George, come with me,” Rigel ordered.

  Officer Chris Snow switched on his flashlight and eagerly stepped into the hallway. George Froia, another officer, followed with a small sonar device in hand.

  Bill Serrano stayed in the cave, watching them venture into the unknown darkness.

  Rigel, Snow, and Froia moved down the corridor, the echo of their footsteps filling the silence.

  Their flashlight beams swept back and forth like wide laser rays, revealing dust motes in the air, long shadows shifting with the movement of the light, and, in the corners, thin trickles of liquid—most likely water—dripping from the pipes on the ceiling, running down the walls, and forming small puddles on the floor. This place had gone without proper maintenance for a long time.

  As they advanced, Froia’s sonar device mapped what lay ahead. Every so often, he glanced at the screen, then looked up at the lamps hanging high on the walls, just below the ceiling pipes. Of the five they’d passed, he’d counted three with black stains.

  Snow searched the walls for an outlet and found two, both marked with scorch marks. A switch, also scorched. He tried flipping it. No response.

  “If you ever wanted to know what a real short circuit looks like…” he said.

  They continued, this time aiming their flashlights at the doors, as if any one of them might swing open, releasing a rampaging killer—or something even more disturbing and surreal, like a horde of the undead.

  Rigel tried a few of the doors, but they were all locked, and he didn’t force them. They’d check what was behind them later; for now, they needed to finish inspecting the hallway’s circuit.

  “I’ve seen creepy bunkers before, but this one takes the prize,” said Froia.

  As they reached the end of the straight path, they began probing the darkness on their left.

  “What will we find up ahead, George?”

  George Froia glanced at the sonar, but the screen flickered so much it was impossible to make anything out. “Something’s wrong—I’m losing the signal,” he said, trying to fix it, but it was no use.

  “Interference?” Snow asked.

  At that moment, their flashlights dimmed slightly, as did the lights on their helmets. Not much, but enough to notice.

  Froia let out a huff, looking again at the burn marks around the lamps. He thought he understood what had happened but wasn’t ready to draw conclusions just yet.

  Snow looked at Rigel. “Should we head back?”

  The Detective didn’t answer. He kept moving forward, and the others followed.